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Politics and IR of the Middle East (SPS-RE-SAR-EA-25)

SPS-RE-SAR-EA-25

Purpose

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) continue to be characterised by several problems and challenges, including unresolved conflicts and ongoing (civil) wars, a general upgrade of authoritarianism, crony capitalism and ever-rising socio-economic inequalities, exclusionary ethno-religious politics, migration and refugee flows, and environmental degradation. The region is also of strategic importance, with external powers, most notably the US and the European ‘neighbour’, being mostly interested in the stability of the region (at the expense of other pressing issues). With every ‘crisis’ in the region, self-declared Middle East experts pop up, but popular analyses often lack historical background, context, area-specific knowledge, and conceptual and theoretical rigour. Concurrently, Middle East scholars have been accused (and unfairly so) of not having been able to predict crucial events in the region, such as Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, 9/11, the consequences of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the Arab uprisings, and, more recently, the Hamas attacks on Israel of October 7, 2024, Israel’s ensuing war on Gaza and subsequent developments. It remains indeed challenging to analyse and conduct research in a region that is vast and heterogenous, where European colonialism left deep marks, where conflicts and wars have been frequent, and where the extent of foreign meddling has remained high. In addition, empirical research in the region faces the problems of access and availability of reliable data in light of widespread authoritarianism, ongoing conflicts and hence personal security issues.

Geographically, the seminar focuses on what I call the Mediterranean Middle East, that is, an area stretching from Morocco in the West to Turkey in the East – although Iran and the Gulf monarchies will also be considered. The first part of the seminar will focus on key developments that have a lasting impact on the politics and international relations of the region, such as the modalities of the emergence of the modern state system in the Middle East, identity formation(s), post-colonial politics in the region, and the question of Palestine. The second part will focus on questions of regional security, war and peace, alliances, foreign interventions, and the question of regional order. It will do so by applying different approaches from political science and IR, thereby highlighting the important contributions – and potential contributions – that political science and IR can make to the study of the Middle East and vice versa.

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